Iraq Qaeda leader rebuffs move to end dispute with Syria group: SITE

June 15, 2013|Reuters

RIYADH (Reuters) - An audio recording attributed to the head of al Qaeda in Iraq suggests he has rebuffed efforts by the group's global leader Ayman al-Zawahri to end a dispute with the movement's Syrian wing, the SITE Monitoring group reported on Saturday.

Al Qaeda in Iraq announced in April it had united with Syria's Nusra Front in a new group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, angering the Nusra Front which said it had not been informed.

Zawahri stepped in last week, annulling the supposed merger and saying the two groups were separate.

"The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant remains as long as we have a pulse or an eye that blinks; it remains, and we will not bargain with it or back down from it," said the recording attributed to Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

"As for the message that was attributed to Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri, may Allah preserve him, we have with it several sharia and method-based issues," he added, according to SITE, a Washington-based think-tank which tracks militant Islamist groups.

The speech was posted on Islamist forums on Thursday, but not on al-Fajr media, the group's official website, causing some militants to doubt its authenticity, SITE reported.

However, Baghdadi's voice, and that of another Islamist militant spokesman in the recording, do sound similar to previous audio releases, SITE reported.

The Nusra Front burst into prominence early last year, when it claimed responsibility for several powerful bombings in the Syrian capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo.

Since then, it has expanded operations nationwide, winning recruits among rebels who see it as the most effective fighting force against Assad's troops, and it has taken a leading role in capturing territory in the north, south and east of Syria.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, which suffered setbacks before U.S. troops left at the end of 2011, has bounced back with suicide bombings and coordinated attacks this year, including an ambush that killed 48 Syrian soldiers who had fled across the border.

Iraqi security officials have said since last year that the militants are again active in Iraq's western desert region adjoining Syria, where cross-border Sunni tribal ties are strong.

Al Qaeda's Iraqi wing and Syria's Islamist insurgents share a hatred for Assad's Alawite-based power and for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government, which they see as oppressors of Sunnis in both countries.